[attr="class","top"]

She'd brought a baseball bat studded with nails to fight ghosts. It was commendable, and badass, though not entirely practical. But Kepler'd designed lectures on quantum mechanics; he was in no position to comment on the praticality of anything.

He barely restrained himself from parroting her words back at her, pitched up and whining. Don't mouth off to the people carrying blunt instruments studded with metal spikes was a survival instinct that was frequently underestimated.

"Pokemon causing trouble," he said, selecting a different part of her proclamation, instead, and reading it out like it were an instruction manual, "ergo, ghosts." He didn't know any other types that liked to fuck around quite as much.

He pinged the keycard off the reader and the door locks opened with a pneumatic hiss. Ruby blundered right past him, and he suppressed a roll of his eyes, following her into the dark lobby. It was tall and spacious, with large floor to ceiling windows, tiled floors coated in dust, and a circular receptionist's station that protected a series of branching hallways from interlopers.

Kepler squinted into the dark, trying to read the hallway signs and see which one pointed him towards the control room, or the lab, or something like that.

The intercom beeped-- long, low, steady, like someone was leaning on the button. Kepler jumped.

It went on for about ten seconds and then faded.

"Perfectly logical reasoning for that," he said, more for Ruby's sake than his own, finally finding the hallway that read --> SYSTEMS & SECURITY, "if there's power for the door locks there's going to be power for the intercom system."

And he struck off down the hallway.

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

[attr="class","top"]

Kepler was not a big believer in weaponry besides his Pokemon. His rabbit was an accomplished MMA fighter and spat fire. Why would he need a gun or a bat?

"You’re right. Ghosts don’t exist.” Scientifically speaking, of course. Kepler’d dabbled in the supernatural, however briefly. It hadn’t panned out. “Except these ghosts,” he added, and Phobos and Deimos chose that moment to appear in twin flashes of light, the Misdreavus cackling wildly and spinning one direction, the Drifloon silent and spinning the other.

"So there’s nothing to be scared of,” he said, over his Pokemon’s mocking laughter, as the two little spirits split off to go investigate on their own. "There. Now we have a logical explanation for weird noises and things.”

True to form, the lab came to life with distant clanking, honking, and faraway giggles. To Kepler, it was comforting. Like being back on the sub.

The walls were tall panels of metal that, had there been light, would have reflected altered versions of themselves back at them. The ceiling above came to a point. Kepler squinted at the directional signs until he found the one that said ‘SYSTEMS’. The doors were designed so as to almost be invisible same for the small seam in the wall and the keypad.

He waited for Ruby to catch up and buzzed the keycard. The lock clicked but nothing happened. He frowned, and did it again. Again, there was a click, and nothing.

"Goddammnit.” He slapped the keycard to the reader and at the same time the intercom buzzed, pitching up until it was a warbly, staticked shriek:

GO AWAY!

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

[attr="class","top"]

He’d hoped, probably impossibly, that having an answer for all the weird noises and strange happenings would calm her down. Not through any deep-rooted sense of companionship or care of her wellbeing: she was a big, strong girl with a nail-studded bat and an apparently itchy trigger finger. He really did not want to become collateral damage.

It takes him back to long evenings spent hiding behind-- or in-- dumpsters or traschans or under parked cars waiting for his bullies to give up and go away. Fear does strange things to the mind. Rationalizing sounds calms him.

Kepler stumbled backwards when ordered so Ruby could set her Drapion to peeling the metal door open like crushing a tin can. The noise was cacaphonous in the silence and Kepler had to cover his ears.

“Nice,” he says, genuinely fond, in the deafening silence that follows.

Once Skorpios had done his job, Kep pushed into the room, peering cautiously through the doorway. But the room ahead was dark and empty. A large wall of screens most likely made up feedbacks for CCTV security, and a handful of terminals would have tracked everything else: data, logistics, energy output, bugs in the system, security.

He crossed the open floor to the closest computer terminal and powered it on. The wall of screens burst into light as, one by one, the security cameras came to life, displaying a grainy image of various locales across the lab.

One one screen, Phobos was dragging her tendrils over an abandoned shelf of glassware, undoubtedly making them chime. On another, Deimos disappeared into a centrifuge and got it spinning so hard it fell off the counter. The Misdreavous popped out with a grin.

Kepler logged into the computer with the access codes given by the mission dossier and went to work sussing out the energy logs and old CCTV backups. “They save manually whenever there’s action so if something’s been turning on the lights and systems there should be… a recent file save…” his voice trails off as he searches.

All goes silent save the clicking of the mouse and gentle hum of the TV screens.

Until a bloodcurdling shriek startles Kepler out of his chair, knocking it over in fright. "Primus on a pony!" His eyes go to the CCVT screens.

Deimos can be seen darting across the cameras, fear in her eyes, screaming loud enough for them to hear the entire way-- though just as whatever is giving chase is set to pop up on screen, the feed cuts black. Around and around and around it goes, one screen blipping off at a time.

Until finally it seems like she has nowhere to go, and her screen goes black.

"Deimos!"

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

[attr="class","top"]

Kepler’s brain was in a panic. He wasn’t so attached to many of his Pokemon-- he could count on his hands the ones he really knew-- but Phobos and Deimos were… special. To him. To each other.

He pushed himself up and slammed on the keyboard. “The-- cafeteria! The last camera was the cafeteria. J7.”

Ruby was already up and running out of the room. Deimos was still screaming, which was, if nothing else, a good sign that she was still… alive? She was a ghost. Could she die?

Kepler turned to go bolting off after them when he heard it.

The laughter. It sent chills through his body. Tears pricked at his eyes.

“It’s just a ghost,” he told himself, walking backwards to physically sit on top of the computer desk, jostling the keyboard to get his feet up off the ground as though something was going to reach up and grab him. “It’s just a g-ghost.”

If Cerberus’ nose was true, and he led them on the correct path, Ruby would round a corner in time to hear Deimos’ screams cut off, as her little body is subsumed by a boiling, black cloud. A jagged, golden grin would flash in the darkness, and then the cloud-- and all light in the room-- would blink out.

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

[attr="class","top"]

Kepler’s back was to the computer so he didn’t get to see the very nice messag being left for him. The buzzing, barking hum of laughter startles him, and he launched off the computer desk with a scream, stumbling and spinning wildly until his back slammed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room, near the door.

“Fuck! Fuck this!” He wheezed, the air knocked from his lungs, spine certainly already purpling from bruising. “This is some shit up with which I will not put!” Against his better judgment he darted out into the hallway, spinning, trying to orient himself.

“RUBY!”

[scooby-doo spinning logo transition . gif]

Cerberus flames tear through the air, scorching metal tables and melting forgotten plastic trays into piles of beige goo-- to no avail. Whatever swallowed Deimos was gone, leaving nothing in its wake.

A horrible grinding noise sings out as multiple metal picnic-style tables shift and drag along the floor, crashing together to form a circle around Ruby and her Houndoom, trapping them in like the center of a bullseye.

Told… you… to… go… AWAY! sings a demonic, distorted voice over the staticky intercom.

Something snaps and a light fixture from the ceiling directly above Ruby plummets downward.

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

[attr="class","top"]

Kepler? Her voice echoed back through the hallways, sounding somehow impossibly close but also very far away. He didn’t know where she was-- he didn’t know where he was, which meant he didn’t know where he was going.

Where are you?

“I don’t know!” he yells, fear bursting in his throat like a balloon and, oh, boy, this isn’t good for his heart. He rounds a nondescript corner and bolts down another equally nondescript hallway. “Idon’tknowIdon’tknowIdon’tknow!”

The dual tube-shaped fluorescent lights crack off of Ruby’s protective bubble, fracturing in the center and spitting sparks and shards of glass and filaments as they go out. The wires snap and crack as they whip down from the ceiling, one pulling taught and slicing up as it does so-- only the protect stops it from garroting Ruby right then and there.

The Sunny Day filled the room with a bright and unforgiving gleam, reflecting off the tile and metal tables; something made a horrible groaning noise, as though the sunlight really was hurting it. From a corner of the room, the shadows began to bubble and hiss, like sugar bubbling in a pan; as the darkness receded, Deimos popped out with a triumphant shriek, speeding towards Ruby with her little tendrils flowing out behind her. She circled around Ruby and then, with a scream of utmost impudence, fired off a hex in the direction of the bubbling shadow.

It struck the darkness and gave it shape, the Dusknoir forming out of the receding ichor, crying in pain and grasping at where the hex struck through it like a spear, pinning it to the wall.

Kepler, meanwhile, was running chaotically around, freaking out the entire time. He rounded another corner and-- bomf!

Ran smack-face-first into Phobos, the sudden stop of his forward motion throwing him backward to crack his head on the floor and black out.

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing